1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an inspection apparatus and, more particularly to an inspection apparatus that makes it possible to simultaneously inspect a plurality of locations, for example, a bottle mouth as well as the bottle bottom.
2. Description of the Prior Art
On production lines of bottle utilization such as in the beverage or pharmaceutical industries and the like, there are the bottle washing process and bottle inspection process as an absolute necessity. Regardless to whether the bottles are new or recycled, after bottle washing, it is necessary prior to using bottles, to detect residual foreign particles or damage at the bottle mouth and bottom. Such inspections are mostly conducted visually. In addition to the inspection of the bottle mouth and bottom, it is further necessary occasionally to also inspect the bottle body.
As a recent trend, instead of the above mentioned visual inspection, mechanical inspection has become adapted as a step to promote inspection automation. Many systems have already been proposed as equipment for such automatic bottle inspection whereas photo-electric conversion sensors such as photodiodes or television cameras or the like are used to detect abnormalities by photo-electric conversion of the optical brightness differences at the inspected zones of the bottle due to damage or abnormal conditions.
However, by such conventinal systems, it was impossible to simultaneously inspect a plurality of sections, such as the bottle mouth, bottle bottom or bottle body, etc. by one photo-electric conversion sensor. In other words, for instance, three separate photo-electric conversion sensors are used in order to inspect the three points of bottle mouth, bottom and body, by which three separate photo-electric conversions for respective inspected places will have to be conducted, which outputs were fed into three separate inspection units in order to conduct the inspection. Therefore, conventional systems contain the deflect that they tend to be complicated and high cast.